ratner topical content mozart sonatas

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Topical Content in Mozart's Keyboard Sonatas Author(s): Leonard G. Ratner Source: Early Music, Vol. 19, No. 4, Performing Mozart's Music I (Nov., 1991), pp. 615-619Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3127924Accessed: 22-04-2015 03:02 UTC

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Leonard G. Ratner

Topical content in Mozart's keyboard sonatas I shall consider here the role of topical content in the rhetoric of Classic music, using Mozart's keyboard sonatas by way of illustration. The term 'topic' here signifies a subject to be incorporated in a discourse. A topic can be a style, a type, a figure, a process or a plan of action. Top- ics can be intra-musical-elements of the language of music-or extra-musical taken from other media of expression. The connection between these two aspects of topical content has a long history.

Music, in its relationship to the temporal arts- poetry, drama and choreography-has been something of a chameleon, if not an actual parasite. Throughout its history Western music has repeatedly been taken up by the language and theatrical arts as a means of inten- sification, to elevate and sustain the effect of the word or gesture. But as music joins with word or gesture it gradually incorporates its own syntax, its idiomatic elaborations to the point that the word or gesture is absorbed into the play of musical rhetoric, especially in extensions and elaborations. The actual presence of the 'host' (that is, the word or gesture) disappears, but its configuration remains in the contour and the form of the music-a process comparable to the shape that is given to the fin- ished jewel in the lost wax process.

This back-and-forth process, in which music is bor- rowed and then takes over, finally to be simplified once again when it becomes too elaborate, has taken place a number of times-in plainsong, in medieval polyphony, in the Renaissance motet and madrigal, and in Italian opera of the 18th and 19th centuries. These processes bespeak apt connections between music and other media of expression, both in syntactic ways and in the sense of what is being communicated. The influences work in both directions-from the image, gesture or idea to musical syntax and vice versa. That is, musical syntax can enhance the word or gesture; on the other hand, the suggestion or the implication of the image, word or gesture can give colour and enriched content to musical syntax.

The syntactical make-up of Classic music lends itself aptly to the interplay of musical processes and topical references. In the Classic style, the precise trim of cadential formulas, rhythmic groupings, clear articulations, transparent textures and orderly key schemes allow a

composer to etch sharply with figures that are neatly and closely spaced, to spin out a rhetoric that is essentially comic and witty in its underlying tone. This attitude is embodied particularly in the rapid shifts of topic, of affective stance, that are so often heard in late 18th- century music. Wilhelm Fischer characterized Classic music as incorporating contrast on the smallest scale.' A biting comment on an aria of Paisiello in 1778 is ad- dressed to the prevailing Italian penchant for mixing topics. The writer, Goudar, says: I have analysed an aria of the famous Paisiello. I found a great and fiery imagination in the first phrase; in the second, this cooled noticeably; in the third he introduced a disorderly, jan- gling noise; in the fourth he made an unpleasant modulation; and the fifth was entirely from another world; the rest was in the usual Italian fashion, and upon a very fine text by Metastasio.2

A wide range of referential materials was available to Classic composers. These materials formed part of a musical language understood by composers, performers and listeners, and constituted a vast thesaurus of'words' and 'phrases' from which anyone could draw. In this thesaurus we find every level of dignity, from the highest to the lowest styles; every locale, from the church to the countryside; every degree of specificity, from descriptive pictorialisms (such as Turkish music, battle music and pastoral musettes), to characteristic dances, general. affective stances, and even small figures that had gestural profile.

These spectra of associations represented the 18th- century trend toward codification, toward the ordering of materials and processes, putting them into clear and accessible arrangements for ready use and immediate understanding. Among the codes listed in critical and theoretical writings we find rhetorical systems, affective stances, locales of performance, degrees of dignity, characteristic styles, genres, key and chord relationships, poetic metres, and, very significantly, the identification and explanation of ornamental figures that themselves had gestural and motivic relevance.

The theatre was the chief venue for the matching of word and gesture with tone. For dramatic truth such matching was obligatory. Music without words modelled itself to a great extent upon music of the theatre-

EARLY MUSIC NOVEMBER 1991 615


arias, dances and ensembles-even recitatives. Edward Dent wrote of this trend: What the Germans were aiming at in their harpsichord sonatas (the same could apply to fortepiano music) was the reproduc- tion for domestic consumption of those wonderful Italian arias which every Italian soul could hear as often as he liked but which rarely came the way of the music lover north of the Alps.3

Dent's reference to keyboard performance can be applied to the role that the fortepiano played in the life of the later 18th century. The fortepiano, a domestic instru- ment, was a complete ensemble in its own right. It often served as a surrogate for the large ensembles of the theatre, church and chamber. It brought the greater outside world of music into the home, but did so with a differ- ence. Whatever the tone quality of a specific fortepiano may have been, it did not match the richness, the full- ness, the sustaining powers of voices or orchestral instruments. Thus, it had to compensate with lively action for what it lacked in full body or sound. When the fortepiano takes up stances that are modelled on theatrical attitudes, it tends to touch upon them briefly and succinctly, creating (particularly in the music of Mozart) a kaleidopscopic continuity. The effect is analogous to cartoon sketching as contrasted with full-colour, filled-in art.

This flexibility implies a degree of control over the declamation by the keyboard performer which surpasses that of performers in ensembles. The fortepiano player truly rules the action, is answerable only to himself or herself in matters of interpretation-tempo, dynamics, ornamentation and nuances. Thus, the fortepiano was a quintessential locale for the play of topic.4

In many movements of his keyboard sonatas Mozart delineates a specific topic in the first few bars. Apart from the minuets that are designated in the titles-the second movement of the Sonata in E flat major, K282, and the second movement of the Sonata in A major, K331-we can recognize minuet style in the first movement of the Sonata in F major, K280, and the second movement of the Sonata in C major, K545. Other topics (to name a few) include the gavotte of the third movement of the Sonata in D major, K284, the siciliano of the first movement of the Sonata in A major, K331, the hunt- ing fanfare that begins the Sonata in D major, K576 and Turkish marches in the Sonatas in A minor and A major, K310 and K331, respectively.

Somewhat less specific, but still strongly suggestive of their topical content are the first movements of the Sonatas in D major, K284 and K311, which take up the

scintillating, busy manner of the Italian opera overture. Also in an orchestral vein, the first movement of the Sonata in C minor, K457, suggests a symphony in a seri- ous vein as it alternates bold tutti figures with legato song-like figures in pathetic style; perhaps this opening phrase group became a model for a similar opening statement in the Jupiter Symphony written four years later. A few measures later in this movement the fore- tepiano hints at a solo concerto layout as it answers the opening tutti figure with a tirata in the brilliant style. The opening measures of the sonata in E flat major, K282, evoke the style and texture of a wind serenade. Dis- tributed throughout the sonatas are gigues, German waltzes, contredanses, sarabandes, an occasional polon- aise or bourree, passages in the singing style, the brilliant style, the stile legato and the fantasia style-all of these well known stances or styles in Mozart's time.

Further, we can include specific figures-appoggiat- uras, tiratas, arpeggios, suspensions, turns, repeated notes etc.-in the theatrical climate generated by the constant presence of topical content. These short figures take on topical character as postures, as gestures that carry affective value. They enter the discourse as subjects that surround the more sharply delineated topics.

In ex. 1, the exposition of the first movement of Mozart's Sonata in D major, K284, there many shifts of topic, more than 20. No topic is given more than a few bars; each is sharply etched, set in high relief by juxtapo- sitions and by contrasts in texture and melody. The topics themselves are drawn from various parts of the thesaurus-scoring, melodic styles and figures, characteristic bass progressions, and ornamentation.

The relevance of the topical component in Classic musical rhetoric has several aspects. For the composer, it is part of the stock-in-trade, material to be identified and selected. For the listener and the scholar, topical content presents a kind of informal iconography-figures that have direct or symbolic meaning. For the performer, the recognition and projection of topical content is of the greatest importance. An awareness of referential impli- cations can have a profound influence upon decisions for performance. Figures and motives would be sharply profiled and subtly nuanced. They would be set against each other in relief by the performer's control of dynamics, tempo, articulation and emphasis to mark critical notes and figures for special attention. The result is an articulate performance.

Attention to topical content can also throw a striking light upon Mozart's compositional ways. For example, in ex. i the many changes of stance are managed with the

616 EARLY MUSIC NOVEMBER 1991


Ex. 1 Mozart, Sonata in D, K284, i, exposition Allegro singing style orchestral unison as a concerto tutti

brilliant style murky bass

singing style

trommel-bass

orchestral tutti; concitato

march

singing style; orna-

V A

.Aj -_

mental stile legato brilliant style

chaconne- type bass

mentl sile egao billint tyl tr t

.,, f ,.--P


tutti-solo rubato

L I 1I1

tutti-solo rubato

recitative oblig6 brilliant style

fanfare singing style

fanfare singing style

orchestral unison coups d'archet singing style

-z -i, -- "..--

------

--TI- '----- _-:L

fanfare orchestral unison

618 EARLY MUSIC NOVEMBER 1991


greatest deftness and skill. Mozart weaves threads of connection that link contrasted sections and figures by single notes, by overlaps in cadential action, by shifts of stance within cadential formulas. He veers again and again at surprising tangents, but always turns upon a point of leverage between the juxtaposed topics. The support for such local contrasts is maintained by the long-range harmonic and period trajectories that he and his contemporaries used as frameworks for local action.

Topical references, precise as they may be, are essentially connotative; they are suggestive within the context of an ongoing discourse. Once recognized, they add a final touch of imagery to the coherence and design of tonal patterns. In this process, Mozart, with his incred- ible skills and his ability to incorporate and synthesize elements from the various styles of 18th-century music, was the greatest master. This aspect of his style calls for fuller treatment that it has hitherto received in performance practice studies and in performance itself.

Leonard G. Ratner is professor emeritus of Stanford Uni- versity. He is the author of Classic Music: Expression, Form, and Style (1980) and Romantic Music: Sound and Syntax (forthcoming).

Discussion WILLIAM KINDERMAN I would not in any way contradict your main and important point about the evocative nature of Mozart's musical language, and our sense that in these sonatas we are confronting a microcosm of his art. But I want to express a concern about the matter of a topic being confined to a few bars and about the impres- sion that might be conveyed that we are listening to a whole stream of motifs without taking note of the fact that Mozart of course binds all these up into larger units that have a unity of tone and an involved structural inte- gration. If you look at the section up to bar 21 in this movement there is a steady and subtle hand bringing together all the units you describe into a larger whole.

LEONARD RATNER I don't see any problem in integrating what I have to say with what you have to say: you are simply taking the topics and assimilating them into an analytical framework. But these basic materials have not in my experience been fully understood and expressed by performers, and it's performance I'm interested in rather than analysis.

MALCOLM BILSON I've always thought along the lines you

suggest, and you have made the matter eminently clear. But one thing disturbs me: whereas most of your topic definitions are quite specific, there are many you refer to as simply'singing style', in spite of the fact that they seem to me quite disparate in character.

LEONARD RATNER I'm using 'singing style' in the sense used by the theorists of the time; and I should say that this sonata is among the most compact in terms of the topics it uses. In other sonatas a single topic may be extended for 12 or 13 bars; it's not the length that matters but the notion of character in the writing.

ROBERT LEVIN I think it is absolutely essential that per- formances of music of this period should communicate the surface tension created by details, whose purposeful opposition is nevertheless integrated into a whole. Now this is certainly not limited to these character distinc- tions you have laid out, which I find enormously helpful; it applies also to the articulatory surface of the piece. This goes back to George Barth's paper, and is the whole problem with the 19th-century editors putting all those slurs into their editions. Precisely in the interests of stressing the organic unity of the composition, the surface was dispensed with because it was too inconvenient with its articulations, too lively and contradictory. You have to hear the greater shapes, of course, but you also have to integrate the detail with all its apparent built-in contradictions.

'W. Fischer, Studien zur Musikwissenschaft, iii (1915), p.25 2 H. C. Koch, Journal der Tonkunst (1795), p.197 3E. Dent, Sammelbiinde der internationalen Musikgesellschaft, xiv

(1912-13), P509 4 C.P.E. Bach led the way in exploiting the freedom and flexibility of

the keyboard performer to the extreme in his Sonatas und Fantasiasfiir Kenner und Liebhaber (1779-85). He takes advantage of the solo role of the performer to juxtapose the boldest contrasts in topical content. Bach's keyboard music bears witness to the hegemony of the performer; it displays more flexibility and unpredictability than the music of any other major composer.

EARLY MUSIC NOVEMBER 1991 619


Article Contentsp. 615p. 616p. [617]p. 618p. 619

Issue Table of ContentsEarly Music, Vol. 19, No. 4, Performing Mozart's Music I (Nov., 1991), pp. 497-688+1-5Volume Information [pp. 1-5]Front Matter [pp. 497-497]Editorial [pp. 498-499]Performers, Sources and EditionsPerformance and 'Authenticity' [pp. 501-506+508]The Old and New Mozart Editions [pp. 513-532]The Neue Mozart-Ausgabe: A Retrospect [pp. 533-537]Mozart Performance in the 19th Century [pp. 538-555]

Mozart and His SingersMozart's Belmonte [pp. 556-563]'Ich bin die erste Sngerin': Vocal Profiles of Two Mozart Sopranos [pp. 565-576+579]Mozart's Italian buffo Singers [pp. 580-583]Susanna's Hat [pp. 585-589]

Analysis and the PerformerIntroduction [pp. 590-591]Subjectivity and Objectivity in Mozart Performance [pp. 593-600]Mozart's First Thoughts: The Two Versions of the Sonata in D Major, K284 [pp. 601-613]Topical Content in Mozart's Keyboard Sonatas [pp. 615-619]20th-Century Analysis and Mozart Performance [pp. 620-626]

[Photograph]: Scene in St Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna, during the Visit of Pope Pius VI in 1782 [p. 628]SaleroomsInstruments [pp. 629-630+633]

BooksReview: untitled [pp. 635-636]Review: untitled [pp. 636+639+641]Review: untitled [pp. 643+645]

MusicReview: untitled [pp. 649+651]Review: untitled [pp. 651+653]Review: untitled [p. 653]Review: untitled [pp. 655+657]

RecordingsReview: untitled [pp. 661+663+665]Review: untitled [p. 665]Review: untitled [pp. 667+669+671+673]Review: untitled [pp. 673+675+677]Review: untitled [p. 677]Review: untitled [pp. 677-679]

Events1991 Boston Early Music Festival [pp. 683-684]Some Mozart Exhibitions [pp. 684+686]

Orbituary: Christopher Monk (1921-91) [p. 687]Correction: Textual Symmetries and the Origins of Heinrich Schtz's "Musikalische Exequien" [p. 687]Back Matter [pp. 500-688]

ratner topical content mozart sonatas

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